Pi Day Vocabulary

Learn these words relating to pi, the mathematical constant and the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet.
Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th, or 3/14, the date that corresponds to the first (and most well-known) digits in the decimal form of Pi.

To calculate is to do some arithmetic, like if you calculated that you were three miles from home or owed twenty dollars for dinner plus tip. Besides math, this word is used metaphorically for others kinds of figuring out. Often, calculating is a synonym for thinking. In that figurative sense, calculate has a bit of a heartless connotation. A ruthless, severe person can be described as cold and calculating.

...39 digits are sufficient to perform most cosmological calculations, because that’s the accuracy necessary to calculate the circumference of the observable universe to within one atom’s
diameter. -
Scientific American (Mar 14, 2016)

π is an irrational number, and cannot be expressed as a common
fraction.

A fraction is a part of something. In math, that means a number such as ¼ or 12/8. When people use the word more loosely, it usually refers to a tiny part of something: just an itty-bitty bit. If a fraction of voters support blowing up the moon, that doesn’t indicate a ton of support, which is understandable, because what did the moon do to anybody?

The first written description of an
infinite series that could be used to compute pi was laid out in Sanskrit verse by Indian astronomer Nilakantha Somayaji around 1500 A.D. -
Scientific American (Mar 14, 2016)

An infinite number—like Pi—has no end. You could never get to the end of it, even if you kept counting all day, every day, for the rest of your life. An infinite number, like numbers themselves, never ends, man. The noun form is infinity, which can apply to anything without an end or limit. The upcoming superhero blockbuster
Avengers: Infinity War is named for the Infinity Gauntlet, a glove-like weapon that gives the wearer limitless power and is on my Christmas list.

So what use have all those digits been put to? Statistical tests have suggested that not only are they
random, but that any string of them occurs just as often as any other of the same length. -
New York Times (Mar 13, 2015)

At some point in your life, you were most likely taught how to round
integers and decimal numbers to some specified number of digits or decimal places.Scientific American (Dec 18, 2013)

Fractions are parts of numbers, but plenty of numbers are whole and complete, thank you very much. A fancy math term for a whole number is integer. 34 is an integer, but ¾ is not. Whole doesn’t have to mean positive: -34, -9000, and -2 are all integers too.

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